


the wolf you don't know

by Code16



Series: As Told [6]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Compulsions (Mind Control), Curse of Obedience, Good Intentions, Mundane Luxury, Obedience, Other, Partial Mind Control, Rescued, aftermath of rape, mental alteration, might have more chapters but might also not have any more chapters, permanent mental alteration, prolonged captivity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-09 01:21:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10400562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Code16/pseuds/Code16
Summary: John post rescue by Team Machine.(Or, what is the right thing to do when you’ve got a superobedient traumatized ex-assassain in your house.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to enemyofperfect for encouragement.
> 
> * * *
> 
> A note I'm not entirely sure how to put, but:
> 
> Team Machine in this verse rescued John from the ISA. 
> 
> They are also currently themselves restricting his autonomy in various ways, exercising control over him, making decisions about him and without even consulting him, etc. 
> 
> If asked, they would probably say that they don't like this, but they are constrained by circumstances. 
> 
> In real life, people who say things like that are very often being horrible, acting from oppressive ideas and etc, or at the very least acting within oppressive systems without sufficient recognition of this. (They can also be indeed constrained by circumstances, victims of issues themselves, etc. The two are also not mutually exclusive. The latter also doesn't make the situation of the controlled people ok or not happening.)
> 
> I am trying to write Team Machine as taking action, on various motivations that do include ethics, in, as noted, rather difficult circumstances. If someone has criticism of their behavior/decisions, that is definitely feedback I welcome. 
> 
> But, given the content, I also want this note re things that are not in fiction and very much do happen.
> 
> * * *

John wakes up to find himself under a blanket. A real blanket, soft and with weight to it, locking warmth around him. Hard to change, hard to wash, not judged needed in a room kept at temperatures to be comfortable for the guests. The sheets, rotating identical array, are to be enough. 

He’s not in his room, then.

Lower dose means not a mission hotel. Someone important, then, calling for use of him, wanting John in their bed for the night after. Or, more likely in between. No orders have come yet, no hands on him. Must have woken up himself, not been woken. Not yet. (If he’s quiet, John finds himself thinking, doesn’t move, doesn’t change his breathing, maybe they won’t notice yet, whoever they are.) The sheets are soft as the blanket, the room must be dim. He keeps his eyes closed. He doesn’t quite notice when he falls asleep again.

 

The next time he wakes up, his memories come more at hand. He keeps his eyes closed again, pulls facts out of them and into order. 

He has, by all indications, been kidnapped. (Or stolen, perhaps, more accurately. Hijacked. Something like that.) He can’t remember recognizing them - not guests, not agents, not anyone he’d seen on a mission and remembers. (Which doesn’t mean much, of course. Anyone can hire guns). And conversely - centrally, execrably -  they knew him. Knew him enough to order, knew him enough to give the deeper standing orders. The kind that lodged, persisted. Offered resistance.

He remembers the orders too, of course, brief moments of sightless immobile barely consciousness.  _Don’t move._  (That was the immediate kind of order. Gone by now).  _Don’t try to attack anyone in the house. Don’t try to contact anyone outside the house. Don’t try to leave the house._

He doesn’t think he’d been in the house, then. Under the immobility, the sense of movement had underlain, the feel of a motor. He’s probably in the house now. And, appealing as the blankets are, he’d probably best get himself out of them, before someone showed up to make decisions for him. He opens his eyes.

What he can see without moving farther shows a room, medium and plain but definitely upscale. It’s dim, still, but the light’s natural. When he turns he can see the curtained window on the other side. Has to exercise will to stop himself from running to it. He has better control than that, or should. Knows better. 

Instead he finishes his scan (door, other door, closet, nightstand, desk with a chair. No art on the walls, no loose objects anywhere except what looks like a water bottle and a dish cover on the desk), gets carefully out of the bed.

The room is warm. He can feel the loss of heat from the blankets, but he’s not cold. That’s - probably not good news, but it’s not as though there’s anything for it. He lets himself not think about it. He’s still wearing the clothes he was before, though someone had taken his shoes off. Left them at the foot of the bed, even. Whatever they’d drugged him with, his body seems to have burned through it pretty fully. Some lingering lightheadedness, a bit of unsteadiness in movement. That seems to be about it. 

The visual scan hasn’t shown any cameras, which doesn’t mean anything (well, except possibly some kind of M.O. indication). He glances at the door he’s pretty sure is the external one. He should check out the closet, the other door. The dish. He turns around and walks to the window.

It’s real. He can barely make himself slide back the curtains, waiting for the revealed mimicking light-source, the door opening a moment later, someone -. He manages the curtains the barest inch, and then he can hardly keep going either, and there’s light spilling across the floor, across him, and, and. 

He’s in a city, he can think after a moment. American city, probably - there’s a flag in one of the windows he can see. He can barely make himself look at any of it. Split and hidden by the buildings, the sky still stretches itself out above, white-clouded and blue. And - he’d seen the sky, of course he had, mission after mission, planes and ships and cities, had pulled it out of his high-dose memories to look again in mind at what he’d barely glanced at at the time. It’s not the same. It can’t be the same.

(He thinks he cries. Carefully, carefully, almost soundless, it’d be hard to see, from behind, and the tears wipe away, might just be from the light. (Aren’t.)) 

 

He has to tear himself away by force to finish his room inventory, keeps glancing back as he walks around. (He remembers the sky in the desert, looking up sometimes, thinking it might be the last, it could all be the last. Waiting for the bullet with his name on it. It’s not the same either, again. He couldn’t have  _missed_  it, then.)

He was right about which door is which. The one’s locked, obviously. The other opens to a bathroom, standard accoutrements, bathtub with a shower. He closes the door again, breathes carefully. Lets himself not think about it again. 

The closet has clothes in what looks like his size, suits and shirts and underthings. Nothing fancy, no drawers, no… contents of drawers elsewhere. ( _Maybe they bring their own_ , the thought comes to him, before he closes his mind on it again). 

He left the dish cover for last. He sits down in the chair to take a look at it. (It’s a nice chair, padded and ergonomic. Might be possible to sit in, even when the firmer kind turned… unappealing. Wheels aren’t very stable, though, and the back’s tall and hardly sturdy, so maybe they -. He cuts the thought off again).  

The dish cover comes with a note,  _For you_  written in a neat hand in large letters. Not an order, which, well, he’d played that game before. He lifts the cover. 

He’s not sure what he’d been expecting. A sheaf of orders, ration bars, a speaker. Some kind of elaborate plug vibrator. Instead it’s a burger, as ordinary (and high end) as the room, a nest of fries laid out next to it. (No utensils, though there’s a napkin tucked along).

For the first time, the window has competition. For several seconds, John stares between the food (it’s also real; he can smell it now) and the note, trying for some - interpretation. Another few seconds, the dilemma of whether to eat it all as fast as possible (before someone comes in and makes him  _stop_ ) or to - take his time. He unfreezes (they might be coming  _right now_ ) and goes for a compromise, something like regular speed. (It’s probably drugged, that or the water. He doesn’t hesitate much, for that. (A few moments maybe, a look at the window again. No way to know where he’ll be waking up, next time.) But as they go, eating voluntarily is about the nicest way to get a drug in him. He doesn’t think it’ll help his situation much, if a first thing his new - keepers - have to do with him is remind him of that.) He saves the last few fries, pushes the chair over to the window and eats them looking at the sky. 

 

It takes about forty five minutes and no drug effects materializing (the sky had begun sharing attention with items like trees and grass and houses) for thoughts to get too insistent to ignore. (No one’s come in, or even made themselves known, in all that time which - probably contributes). 

Whoever took him must have gone to a high amount of trouble - and danger - to do so. Must have done it with purpose, reasons, and him sitting at a window eating fries after having spent time alone in bed with a blanket is - obviously not it. The question, of course, is what is.

The most pleasant of possible scenarios, he can tell himself, is the one with some special guest, deciding they weren’t satisfied with the previous apportionment of his company, wanting him for a more private arrangement. (He thinks of the bed again, the serving plate, looks out across a roof where a bird has landed on a metal vane. If this is more than some - game, or oversight, if they plan to keep him like this. Or just - a day or two maybe, sometimes, vacation-suite-like. That, that might - he can mean it, probably, when he thanks them.)

That is, of course, also complete nonsense, testimony to the kinds of ridiculousness his tablet hands out sometimes as literature. Whatever popularity he might enjoy, whatever pleasant diversion or novelty he might be, no one’s about to court the ISA’s attention over his ass. 

 

A second scenario is, then, the ISA. Some kind of information, interrogation desire that someone’s decided to aim at the one resident asset who can’t refuse to answer questions, even without… convincing. If so, they are, just as obviously, out of luck. His handlers weren’t stupid, knew the risk of it. He knows as much about past missions as he’d seen, could pick handlers and guests out of a lineup. Nothing they wouldn’t know, if they’d gotten as far as knowing about him, as much as they do. Unless they’re doing a study of government workers’ genital measurements or orgasmic capacity, he’s not going to be of particular use, there. (What that means for him, of course, he can’t say. Decides, for now, to leave at that).

Sale’s another easy one to come to mind, but that, the room just doesn’t line up with. Someone who wanted some use of him already might have reason to wear kid gloves for a little, dangle a carrot. Not that he can make it matter much, how well disposed to someone he might be, but maybe not everyone wants to program out extended order sets, or thinks that a week or two in the kind of basement without a bed makes the best attitude adjustment. 

Someone who just wants to hand him on to a highest bidder has no reason not to throw him in a box and tell him to shut up and stay there. Maybe get a few rounds out of him, for good measure - not like any buyer would be able to tell the difference, at this point. So whoever it was that grabbed him - John’s pretty sure they’re the ones that mean to keep him. 

 

And that of course is the last option, likliest and looming. Someone who wanted the other him. Who’d gotten the knowledge, somehow, of an agent who’d obey anything. Who wanted that.   

And no matter what he considers, what it all ends with is that there isn’t anything he can do about it. Government or terrorists, sticks or carrots. If they hand him explosives or a rifle or a 3-d printed gun, tell him to walk into the Capitol or an elementary school. And he can think he’d trade any of it back, then, anything, take the ISA room and its basement, take the rest of his life as a hole in a box somewhere. (Can think it now, at least, if not then, if he’s on a higher dose again.) Can mean it with all his heart, with everything,  _please_. And then he’ll go right ahead and walk. 

 

He’d noticed the other blanket in the closet before, the kind that went with a flat sheet instead of a duvet cover. He fetches it now, wraps himself in it as he sits back by the window. Not much point in thinking about this now. Not enough hard knowledge, nothing to go on, really, like spinning out an ambush around a corner just because he’s at that corner right then. Insufficient vigilance will kill you. Jumping at anything without a plan beyond that will also kill you. Just differently. 

Maybe they don’t want him for anything quite so bad. Maybe they’ll leave him loopholes, or the ISA will find him, or they’ll leave him loopholes and then he can help. (That’s weird to think of as a good scenario, suddenly. Parts of him recoil from it -  _no, no, I don’t want to go back_. Pull up punishments, shrink from them. (He didn’t  _do_  it, didn’t make some plan to run, isn’t  _involved_  at all except that he was seized by - whoever they are. From what experiences he’s had, he doesn’t imagine he’ll be lucky enough to have much of anyone care. Not enough.) But avoiding it is not a luxury he has.) He’s trained to attention twice over, putting things together, working with, among, what he has. He can use it, once he’s given - anything. But he has to wait. And not waste. 

(And maybe it will be as bad as all that, and he’ll walk the world as a perfect, untroubled horror, and curl up somewhere in between, beg futily, silently, for the mercy of his agony. Maybe it’s wrong, then, to still want the window now, to look at the light over the blanket, his hand, and nearly feel tears again. But he wants. For whatever minute, for whatever moment. Until he can’t, but - until.)

 

Thirty-five minutes later there’s a knock on the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much again to all the wonderful commentators!
> 
> Credit to enemyofperfect for inspiring a particular idea.

John jumps. For a moment it’s disconsonant - _knocking why are they knocking_. But there wasn’t a door readout here, was there, or a chime. No time to fold the blanket, probably. He leaves it in the chair, pushes the chair back to the desk, half runs to the door - and then freezes there, staring at it, without an idea of what to do.

Strip? Get on his knees? Sitting’s pretty definitely out but will they think he’s looming if he stands -. He realizes abruptly that the plate’s still on the table, haphazard next to the cover. He should have washed it why didn’t he think -.

The knock comes again (John flinches, tries to breathe); then a voice, not raised, not even sharp.

“Would you mind if I came in right now?” John stares at the door again, tries to figure out what to say to that. _Well I sure can’t stop you_. He’s pretty sure that’s not it. (It occurs to him briefly that he can, actually (if - momentarily). Put himself against the door, drag the desk in front of it. Or the other way around - his orders are only not to leave the house. If he can duck past whoever comes in, he can probably get out of the room. Get some idea of what the house _is_. (He has to work on breathing for another moment, at that thought. Pushes it carefully aside. He’ll need to try _something_ soon, probably. It’s - important to know, what they do, and better pick a time than wait till he works himself into an outburst. Or until he actually needs to act. But - not now. Not the first time.))

“I’m going to open the door.” John realizes he’s failed to answer a direct question (and apparently it’s now after all, then) just as he can see the doorknob turn. Throws a dart at a final decision and keeps standing, eyes half down, carefully back from the door. Can’t hope that it’s right. Can’t stop himself from thinking, somewhere, maybe - maybe they won’t be too bad about it, when they tell him how it was wrong. Tell him what to do instead. Tries not to think about it too hard.

 

The door opens to reveal a man, middle-aged, glasses and a nice suit, a case in one hand. He shuts it again behind him, turns back to John.

“Hello.” John tries to prioritize ‘polite’ vs ‘seen and not heard’ and fails again, stands nearly frozen, only turning slightly as the man walks across the room. (He probably shouldn’t, but he can’t quite bear having someone behind him, if he doesn’t have to. Yet.)

“I’ve brought some menus for you.” The man takes a sheaf of papers from his case and leaves them on the table, a neat stack. “I apologize for not consulting you earlier; we thought it would be better for you to have something for when you woke up. I hope it was sufficiently to your liking.”

John’s head is rushing. The man, the words are so incongruous that he half feels like he’s hallucinating, and half like he’s hearing the ciphertext of some hidden message that he’s supposed to be able to understand, except that it’s escaping him completely. Despite his efforts, something of it must show on him. The man crosses to him, looks at him with what manages to seem like concern.

“Are you feeling ill? We thought it should be out of your system by now - have there been side effects?” He reaches into his case again, like he’s looking for something.

“No,” John manages to squeeze out, then flinches as he hears himself. “I mean - I’m not, there haven’t, sir.” The man still studies him from behind his glasses, but he takes his hand out of his bag.

“Perhaps you should - sit down.” It’s not an order. John backs up a few steps, lets his legs hit solidity and fold, drop him down on the bed. (Rethinks it a moment later - should he have taken the chair? The floor? Can’t get himself to stand up again).       

“You don’t need to call me that.” The man walks up to him, reaches into his bag again. John tries not to flinch this time. Most people didn’t mind, of course (or liked it), but the ones who took offence could mind rather a lot. And it gets more likely, if someone’s being nice.

“If you wouldn’t mind.” It’s a blood pressure cuff, the at-home kind, easy readout display. John holds his arm out, tries not to consider what he might need a base reading for. Could just be routine standard…

After the cuff is a thermometer, then a heart rate monitor (John pulls up training, tries what he can to get his _down_. Base or standard, experimental types don’t like it when he throws their readings.) The man makes no reactions at John or the results, moves through the steps, methodical and professional. Not a doctor, John thinks, but he’s done this before. He barely touches John, hands him the meters to place himself. Doesn’t order.

Last is the ‘follow this with your eyes’ kind of piece. He has to look up all the way for that one. Tries to keep not thinking when the man closes his bag again. (Not syringe, that’d be in the bag. Oral drugs, that too. Possibilities scatter out unformed, maybe-clues and not enough and far too much. _Focus, heartrate, temperature, stress_ -).

The man takes a step back from him, a moment of nothing at all before he speaks again.  

”I realize it can’t mean much but I do - apologize. For the circumstances of your - travel. And currently.” His tone has changed, a new inflection replacing the efficient orderliness. He’s looking at John something like he’d looked at the instruments. For a moment John wonders, ridiculously, if this is part of the medical test. (He’d had a few guests who’d apologize to him. Mostly he was supposed to tell them it was quite alright.  But mostly he was curled on the ground then, or the bed, some various stage of made use of, and not -. And he’d been _told_ \- orders or instructions and accustomed threats, what pleased and what offended and what he’d best not even think of or. (And he’d bet his life before, split second decisions, strategies, a fork in a desert road. And here’s a sentence of words and a few hours in some house’s bedroom and he can’t, he can’t.))

The man’s still looking at him. Makes some facial expression John can’t see then turns slightly and changes tones again, businesslike, procedure to carry out.

”I’m still working on a laptop and phone for you, but they should be ready by tomorrow. No outside connection, I’m afraid, but you’ll be able to use them to contact me. In the meanwhile, once you’ve picked something out circle it and push the menu under the door. If there’s anything else you need, write a note and do likewise. I’ll come by again with dinner if you’d prefer to mention it in person.” He walks to the table again, leaves a sheaf of blank papers and a marker. “Is there anything you’re aware of needing now?”

 _Direct question, direct question, direct question_. John shakes his head, no sound and minimum movement, eyes as half lowered as they’d been. (And he _knows better_ , but if he gets a reprimand, a lesson for it at least there’ll be one thing here that he can _know_.) (His brain, body feel flooded; he’s near certain the only reason the man’s words still make sense to him at all is that any next might be an order. _Hear and obey_.)

“Good evening, then.” The man stops near the door, does something on his own phone. ( _Only unlocks from the outside; can be unlocked remotely_ he feels some part of himself think). Opens it, and closes it, and is gone.

 

For a good five minutes, John can’t get himself to move from the bed at all. In the end some self preservation breaks through. _Menu, menu_. He gets up, makes it over to the table. Stares at the menus for another minute (they’ve been modified, pieces torn off where addresses must have been) before realizing he’s not registering a word. Grabs the marker and circles something at random (it’s near the end, has multiple lines. Probably an entree. Not that he’d object to soup or salad, but it might offend his keeper(s?) if he circles iced tea or something. The man _had_ said dinner.) Tries not to crumple the paper in his hand before he can get it under the door.

He stands at the door for more minutes before giving in to temptation (and-if-he-gets-a-lesson-at-least-he-can-know). Walks to the bed, curls up and pulls the blanket over his head.

Nothing happens. He grits his teeth and almost doesn’t shake and there’s nothing, no door, no hidden loudspeaker, no _what’re you hiding?_ and _get out_ and hands-. Maybe it’s allowed, he can’t help but think, when it’s been minutes and more. Like the sheet in his room (even though it _hides_ him so much more, shapeless in its depth.) If he greets the guests properly, doesn’t make himself trouble-

By the time the room starts to get dark his body’s managed to unwind, some, his mind coming back, down. (Which is far too _slow_ , but he decides to give himself a pass, once. First day at the ISA he’d managed soldier-acquired vocabulary in three languages at his handlers, between screaming. So making all sorts of progress in settling in, really.)

He watches his visitor in mind again; endeavors to use it, this time. Not an agent or soldier, even retired. More nervous than he’d been acting (but he’d not tried to assuage it with a few relevant orders, either). Clearly following some kind of plan, protocol.

Caretaker?, John considers. The transporting he’d been grabbed from wasn’t the kind of time window that gave much freedom. If this team had been in the middle of something, they’d likely have taken it anyway, when the chance came. But _he’s_ not time sensitive, once one has him. So leave him with… someone (the suit’s nice, and tailored, so probably not money, and it’s all sorts of trust so not likely blackmail either. White collar side? Lover or relative?) Someone to give a tour of the carrot, play good cop a bit.   

Or else the guy had some white knight fantasy. (That one, at least, he should be able to figure out pretty quickly. They mostly got to the ‘expecting their due gratitude’ part, before too long.)

 

The second time he makes it to the table, he’s reading well enough to notice three of the menus are breakfast. Circles himself some eggs and toast. Spends probably a bit too long in the drinks section (he shouldn’t have coffee even if he’s allowed - stimulants make tricky drug interactions. But there’s orange juice, hot chocolate-.) Doesn’t push his luck.

The man comes again at dinner as promised. Brings takeout dishes and another plate and a plastic fork. Asks John again if there’s anything he needs. John stays still and looks at carpet by the desk and says thank you, no. The man makes no comment, demands no apology for the last time. Demands, at all, nothing. Says good night like he’d said good evening and says nothing about how close John is to the door when he leaves. John makes the bed, folds the other blanket and puts it away again.

He eats red curry lamb and rice while looking at the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Relevant verse info: due to a Strange Event, John has a non-magic version of an obedience curse. He subsequently spent several years held by the ISA.
> 
> [My tumblr for these kinds of things](http://findundergrounddragoutofwater.tumblr.com). I love fandom social things, and anyone who feels like they might want to message etc me for any reason is encouraged to totally do so.


End file.
